7 Things: Ivey mandates masks, Huntsville added to coronavirus hotspot list, Trump calls out the left’s attack on America and more …

7. Low rent in Alabama isn’t low enough

• The annual “Out of Reach” report released by the National Law Income Housing Coalition suggests that even though Alabama has one of the lowest rent costs in the country, it’s still too high and unaffordable for minimum wage workers. 
• The report says that most minimum wage workers can’t afford the rent for a one-bedroom apartment in 95% of U.S. counties, and none can afford the rent of a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the U.S. Alabama came in 46th for housing costs, and figures that a worker in the state must earn $15.44 per hour to afford a two-bedroom rental.

6. Secret Trump voters

• Recent polling indicates that President Donald Trump is trailing former Vice President Joe Biden. This trend is indicated in national polls by Rasmussen and Quinnipiac, as well as swing state polls that place him down double digits in Pennsylvania and even in Texas.
• In Pennsylvania, a polling firm asked about “secret Trump voters,” or voters who don’t want to say they support Trump publicly, and 57% of respondents said that those voters will not admit they support Trump but will vote for him November.

5. Trump knows what’s best for Alabama, apparently

• President Donald Trump endorsed former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville in the U.S. Senate runoff, and now Tuberville will face U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) in the general election, so Trump has started his attacks against Jones. 
• Trump criticized Jones for “not doing the job,” and added that Jones “doesn’t represent the views of the people of Alabama.” He went on to praise Tuberville, saying that will be “a great senator.”

4. Biden wants to get rid of the “American way of life”

• President Donald Trump has released another attack on former Vice President Joe Biden, saying that he and “the Radical Left want to Abolish Police, Abolish ICE, Abolish Bail, Abolish Suburbs, Abolish the 2nd Amendment – and Abolish the American Way of Life.”
• President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign national press secretary Hogan Gidley said that “Biden is waging war” on the “American way of life,” jobs and families, but Biden has attacked Trump on the coronavirus pandemic again recently, saying that “unlike this president, I’ll actually listen to the experts and head their advice.” That came in response to a report about recent tensions between the White House and Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

3. Huntsville is on the national watchlist

• Due to the rise in coronavirus cases and the positive test percentage being more than 10%, Huntsville has been added to a national watchlist of cases, and people from the national response team are assisting the area. 
• Dr. Pam Hudson, CEO of Crestwood Medical Center, said that the current rate of those hospitalized having to be placed in the ICU is around 30%. She said while our hospitalization numbers seem to be “flattening,” there’s still 132 people hospitalized, and the county positive test percentage is at 15%. 

2. CDC: Coronavirus could be under control in the U.S. if people wore masks

• The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Dr. Robert Redfield has said that if everyone starts wearing a face mask, “over the next four to six, eight weeks, we can bring this epidemic under control.”
• Due to early conflicting reports about the effectiveness of masks, many people still refuse to wear them, but statewide mask mandates are also becoming more popular as states have coronavirus case spikes, leaving governors with the options of mask mandates or shutdowns. 

1. Statewide mask order is happening

• Governor Kay Ivey has revised the state “Safer-At-Home” health order to include a statewide mask requirement, which will supersede all current mask mandates in counties and cities. This was expected as deaths and coronavirus cases continue to increase across Alabama. 
• While U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) praised the move, Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth has made it clear that he supports wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but he’s also voiced his opposition to the mask mandate, saying the order “is an overstep that infringes upon the property rights of business owners and the ability of individuals to make their own health decisions.”